For All Humanity: Chinese Transvaluations of American Space Rhetoric

Mary-Jane Rubenstein • Wesleyan University

April 29th, 2024   •   12:10-1:15PM   •    Boger Hall 114

In the wake of the Soviet launch of Sputnik, Dwight Eisenhower demanded that the US develop a national space program “for the benefit of all mankind.” Answering the call eleven years later, Neil Armstrong dubbed his own small lunar step a “giant leap for mankind.” 

The initially American meme of “all-mankindism” has recently been adopted and redeployed by the Chinese National Space Agency, state media, and popular culture. Insisting it is working “for the benefit of all humanity,” China is offering a self-consciously earth-centered, collective, non-antagonistic alternative to the escapism, individualism, and militarism that generated this phrase in the first place. In other words, China is using US space rhetoric against itself, exposing and refusing cosmic imperialism in favor of an ethos it swears is genuinely collaborative and actually universal.

Social, Cultural, and Crtical Theory Certificate

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